


Photograph (Take a Picture)

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:59:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kono's intentions were good. And they're only a slim stack of ink on photo stock - so how could they have started all this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Autocratic

**Author's Note:**

> So one of the short 'thank you' fics I wrote at New Year's drew a fair amount of _'one chapter, unhappy ending - hell no!'_ Lol... Decided to do more with it. That short fic will be incorporated in these double drabbles, and i'll write it all using the Word of the Day prompts on 1_million_words. Chapter titles are that day's word.

“I wouldn’t have to feel like such a creeper…” Kono slaps the photographs onto Danny’s desk. “…if you two would _commmunnnnicaaate_.”

She pokes the pics with an index finger and is gone.

They’re fresh from the drug store printer; phone camera snaps of Danny looking at Steve when Steve isn’t looking and Steve looking at Danny when Danny's eyes are elsewhere.

It’s one thing to kind of know something, another to hold the evidence.

“Okay, _where_ are they?” Danny marches into her office, waving them.

The prints are numbered – and there’s a single digit gap between each. 

Kono looks defiant. Like she knew he’d suss it out but maybe not quite so fast…

“C’mon, where are the rest of them, _Trouble_?”

She’s looking away – toward Steve’s office. Where Steve is… looking down at something. Looking confused.

“Son of a…” Danny mutters, more worried than angry “Geez, kind of a domineering little move there.”

“You mope for him and then you bury it. He mopes for you and… someone had to push one of you off the diving board. You can’t be surprised by what you’re seeing?”

“I’m not,” Danny’s watching Steve flip through them again. “But he might be.”


	2. Beholden

"It’s fine. These are… nothing."

"Really?"

“Okay, maybe not nothing; a sign of a sweet but overactive imagination.”

“That’s what you’re going with, McGarrett? That it’s all in her head?”

Danny had walked straight over expecting …what? Steve to be surprised? Solemn? Digesting it? Instead he had that distant, cocky ‘f-you, f-the-world’ look on him Danny had seen often - right before he jumped off a balcony or ran into a scene without backup.

“We’ve been ignoring a certain situation so hard, our colleague felt compelled to provide photographic evidence,” Danny waved his until they made a flapping sound. “You don’t feel _any_ obligation to at least discuss the situation?"

“Situation?” The cold edge in his voice was a jolt. “I don’t owe anybody anything.” 

“Wow. See, that’s…why I’ve avoided…”

“Don’t get pissed. Please…” Steve’s voice went from hard to worried quickly- like this was spinning out, and he’d leave now if he weren’t in his own damn office. “Danny, I… don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, we know,” He turned, waving one arm. “You’re a special, wounded little snowflake. _Shit…_.”

~*~

“Ummm… I’m sorry?” Kono said as Danny walked by.

“How did you think it’d go?”

“Not like that!”


	3. Aplomb

“We’re okay?”

Danny nods yes (from the driver’s seat, for once) but if so, why is Steve’s ‘little boy lost’ face irritating the piss out of him? Like pokey pine nettles you don’t see in the sand ‘til they’re stuck in your heel annoying.

“And I shouldn’t have said that to you yesterday.” Danny doesn’t mean it, but … he _will_ keep his cool.

“You were right. I can be kind of shut off. It’s….”

“Remind me about this witness we’re meeting with?”

Steve doesn’t answer right away, jaw tightening visibly. 

 

Danny finds other things to do at night. Then, the one evening they make dinner plans… 

“I’m sorry….” He’s so late, Steve’s washing his dishes. “I don’t know where my head….”

“Passive-aggressive.”

“Huh?”

“Pretty obvious, buddy. ‘Forgetting’ like that.”

“Are you implying…”

“Not _implying_ anything.”

Aplomb goes out the window, taking self-possession with it; they’re hurling ugly insults and labels, words meant to wound, sniping then shouting, then…

‘‘Just Friends’ don’t fight like this,’ Danny thinks when he turns to go, when Steve grabs him, when he spins, flinging his arm to break loose. 

The dull thund when his clenched hand collides with bone is loud. Sickening.

“Oh, no…”


	4. Disheveled

“Rough weekend?” Chin eyes the purple blotch decorating Steve’s cheekbone as Steve walks quickly past he and Kono. He’s got his coffee already in hand, doesn’t linger to chat.

“Surf board popped out of the water funny. Clipped me.”

“Sometimes we kick the waves’ ass. Sometimes it kicks ours back,” Kono offers.

Later, she’s on the verge of asking Chin where the heck Danny is when he flies by. A quarter of an hour late. So not him, ever.

She and her cousin exchange glances; no ribbing out of Steve - no ‘nice of you to show up, you do know it’s Monday?’ Nothing.

“I think I’ll go see….” Chin heads for Danny’s door.

“Yeah….” Kono says.

 

“You look like hell!”

It’s so surprising, that the words bypass Chin’s brain to mouth filter.

“I can’t,” Danny’s sitting, waiting for his computer to boot. “Not now.”

His shirt is wrinkled like he slept in it, hair untended, eyes pink with purple half moons. 

Chin adds it all up. His mouth pops open with an ‘ahhhh’.

“Talk to me.”

“I said I _can’t_ ,” Danny’s voice is a shaky whisper, his eyes on his desk, drawing a long breath. “I asked for a transfer to HPD.”


	5. Air as Heavy as Tears

"What do you want to talk about?" Grace took Danny's hand once they left the ticket kiosk, drifting to the right toward the flamingoes and the cockatoos.

Birds, reptiles, mammals - they always take the same route.

"Why would you think..." He hears how thin his objection sounds.

She’s getting good at this detective stuff.

"You need to know why you haven't seen much of Steve lately..."

It’s humid; air leaden, thick with the smell of plants, mulch, the animals themselves. 

"You know ...not all splits are between, uh, parents. Sometimes, um... _professionally_... things..."

Fall apart. Go to shit. So fast.

He goes on, and she listens patiently. He wonders how much of this she buys and how much she's maybe questioning.

"You okay, monkey?"

"I guess I don't ...believe it. That it won't get better. You two argue all the...."

Danny's mind flashes back -- Steve on his ass on his own kitchen floor, holding his bleeding cheek. The shock in his eyes – if Danny ever forgot it, this decade wouldn’t be when he did.

"Baby this isn’t like that."

Not fixable, he explains. I broke us, he doesn't say.

"What will you do for a job?"

"I'm back with the HPD..."

He goes over the role of a SWAT team member- great job, pay, hours. Steve is still her uncle Steve. Will be calling to take her surfing, will go to her recitals and her middle school graduation like he said he would. Steve asked him to make sure she knew that.

It sinks in on her by the elephant enclosure. Danny finds them a bench and dries her eyes.

Later when he remembers this the smells are still there- dung and dirt and rich tropical air; as heavy on his heart as his daughter’s tears.


	6. Reticent

“You’ve made a good name for yourself in law enforcement circles here…”

“Thank you,” Danny conveys in his voice that he appreciates it.

The governor’s appointed an aide to review his request to make his transfer to HPD permanent. Danny smells ‘don’t get any of that on you’ all over it. He’d expected a curt, above-it-all functionary but the guy seems… kind. World-weary, but like he really cares about the right call.

“Still… I’m sure you get that I need more direct answers to my questions. Whatever’s keeping you silent, this is not the time for it.”

“I’m concerned about the careers of others,” Danny’s slow to say that much. “I’m worried for my friends.”

“That’s extremely normal. But I highly doubt anyone at 5-O is stealing from the state or taking bribes or …”

“Of _course_ not.”

“So if it’s not that critical a caliber… then it’s time to open up, Mr. Williams.”

Danny’s eyes are on a hangnail he didn’t know he had – fidgeting, figuring out where the hell to start. He can’t.

The aide sighs and nods. His eyes say he’s made one decision, at least…

“Marjory,” He presses the intercom to his assistant. “Please send in Commander McGarrett.”


	7. Legerdemain

“Commander, how’d you get the contusion?”

“A kitchen accident,” Steve’s voice was flat. “Most accidents happen in the home, sir.”

Danny wanted to see if the governor’s aide was buying this shit. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Steve; tall in the chair, face a practiced blank.

“Really?”

“I reached for something…that I should have known was beyond my grasp. Ended up on my ass.”

“And hit your face on what?”

“Not sure; my eyes were closed by then. It’s a reflex – your eyes close when you fall. Might have been the counter edge. Or the fridge.”

“It’s entirely coincidental you two can’t say three words to each other, you’ve got a nasty bruise, and Detective Williams wants a transfer?”

“Danny chose not to discuss the reasons for….”

“You didn’t insist?”

“A team’s as strong as its weakest link. If he doesn’t want to be with our team…”

The aide parried, Steve danced. Danny was told he’d get a decision soon.

~*~

“Wait, Danny...” 

He tried to get ahead of him when they left, but Steve was right behind him on the stairs. 

“Stop."

He shouldn’t have turned. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have seen it; the mask gone, the pain in those eyes. How worn Steve looked. 

“D, talk to me. Please.”


	8. Vituperate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. Don't hate me. I promise everything changes next chapter. Not all suddenly happy joy-joy, but... it changes.

“I see where you got the nickname. That _was_ smooth…” Danny spit out the words. “And you’re a fickle damn _dog_ sometimes. They teach you to spin facts like that in SEAL school?”

It was Steve who’d chased Danny out into the parking lot, but now it was Danny who was in his face.

“Hey! C’mon, D, I wouldn’t screw you over with our bosses any more than you’d…”

“Want a medal? I’m sure I can order one online for you. How would you like it to re…”

“What’s this _really_ about?”

“And now you’re a shrink. Ladies and gentlemen, the least self-aware individual on the various and sundry islands of the state of Hawaii will now attempt to analyze somebody _else's_ issues…”

“Stop it. You didn’t quit 5-O because I grabbed you or because you accidentally popped me. Shit, you punched me on _purpose_ the first goddamned week we _met!_ "

“Because you got me shot! And because I didn’t know you. But the other night? I wanted to _deck_ you – _my_ you - because I was right. I _knew_ if I ever got up the nerve to say … you’d treat it like a joke. And then you did.”

Danny was fuming so hard that he didn’t feel Steve stepping in half a step, or the arms drifting low around his waist.

“I wonder why?” Steve took a chance on another bruise by pulling him in tight, asking it against his ear. “Maybe it’s because I know you and I know me and I’ve done the math? The odds of us working out ... they’re so bad.”

“If you rock me like a… I will go Tasmanian Devil on your ass. There will be _foam_ flying from my mouth…”

Danny felt Steve laugh against him – shaky – and for a split second he thought Steve might do it purely to mess with him.

He stepped back. Steve let him.

“Danny, can we rewind a week?”

“Sorry. No. I can’t.”

Steve took it in, staring at the ground, nodding.

“You were afraid I’d push you away,” Steve said eventually. “I was afraid I’d lose you. Hell if we weren’t maybe both right?”

~*~

Steve went home and watched the water, calculating the odds of Danny changing his mind and showing up.

He knew it was maybe a billion to one.


	9. Foment

The rogue group’s mission: Protect the land. Burning McMansions and luxury hotels to do so? It’s a duty, not a crime. Their targets are brand new, not even occupied yet, because taking lives is bad PR. 

But sometimes rogue groups draw loose cannons.

“Jesus, Evan…” the operative had to fight the urge to go free their hostages himself. “Told you we were cutting it too close to opening day. This is bad!”

The owners must’ve detected the anarchists’ initial forays scoping out the Leeward side development – they had upped overnight security. They must have called for expert help, too, because not all the hostages were average rent-a-cops.

“Shut. The hell. Up. Let me think.”

That was the problem, #2 thought. Evan wasn’t thinking. He might be actually crazy.

The hostages sank to their knees as ordered – some pale, silent - others visibly distraught. 

Two were calm – eyes scanning the room for anything they might use to their advantage.

~*~

“Williams!” The team leader waved him over. “Commander wants you running point for us.”

On his second SWAT mission?

“Why?” Danny kept suiting up as he jogged over.

“Couple of your buddies- their asses are in this particular sling. McGarrett and …what’s her name.”

“Son of a …”


	10. Contumely

It was one of the hardest things Danny had ever had to do; not fire on the rat bastard immediately. 

But the guy had Kono on her feet, pinned to him like a human shield with his hand around her neck and a gun to her temple.

He had Steve on his knees inches away.

“We’re here to talk.” He could hear the HPD officer say. “So c’mon, let’s talk.”

The SWAT team was 30 feet up, after creeping carefully into position on the walkway along the ceiling of the hotel’s grand ballroom. If they’d done their job, the thugs thought only two HPD had arrived. 

Could they maintain the illusion long enough to get a clear shot?

“There are six of us…” The ringleader gave Steve a kick that would put most people on their faces. He grunted, swayed but stayed up. “And we know these two are valuable, maybe; not your average pigs. Let us go, they might live. Or… we treat them like the scum they are - give her a painful death, make her grovel, beg. Make her buddy watch.”

At least, Danny thought, they knew what they were dealing with.

There’s no talking with psychopaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story's being written with prompts from the Word of the Day feature on the 1_million_words comm. Today's word/title is new to me. Contumely means "insulting display of contempt in words or actions; contemptuous or humiliating treatment."


	11. Nefarious

Whatever would happen, it was going to happen fast – in the next few seconds, not minutes.

It was pretty obvious this bunch was inexperienced at actual run-ins with the law, but experienced enough to know backup had to be on the way in big numbers.

That inexperience? It probably only made them more dangerous – especially him.

“Evan,” One of his fellow terrorists had the nerve to speak up.

Very interesting. Maybe this could end without….

“Shut. The hell. Up!” The ringleader redirected the gun from Kono’s head to wave it at his friend.

“Evan, it’s over, okay? Before it gets any worse, before we do something that’ll cost us a price we can’t afford to pay…. please, let’s…”

There was a dull pop and the man who’d dared to object fell. Several of the other hostages gasped, looked ready to bolt. 

If any of the other hostage takers had thoughts of surrendering, they were keeping it to themselves.

“Put down your weapons,” Evan told the HPD officers, holding the gun under Kono’s chin. “And have a seat. If there are more of you waiting outside, call them off. We’re taking these two and we are leaving - or this gets very ugly in a hurry.”


	12. Proclivity

It isn’t Steve’s way to let a situation run him. Danny’s not the only one who knows that. Hell, half the SWAT team is probably well aware of his rep. 

Kono’s no wilting flower, either – and the two of them obviously know you can’t let a kidnapper take you to a second place if you want to live.

“Nice and easy, guys…” Danny whispers it into the headset mic, eyes on his rifle site. 

He means the words for his team, but he’s thinking of his friends, too: The HPD officers have taken their seats - it’ll be seconds – three, maybe four- and there will be a clean shot to be taken.

He wishes there were some way to let Steve and Kono know. Wonders if there’s even a slight chance they caught a glimpse of them getting into place?

“Aw, _hell_ …” 

Danny sees them exchange a look as Evan pushes her forward, as one of his crew presses a gun to the base of Steve’s head and gives him a shove toward the door, too.

They’re about to take matters into their own hands.

"Hold fire!"

Danny can only pray a bullet meant for the terrorists doesn’t find them instead.


	13. Incohate

It happened so fast. And it happened in slow motion.

Kono and Steve dropped like rocks, then up-ended the two agitators who were showing them out of the room; Kono by rising up and slamming her head into the guy’s chin so hard he fell without a sound, Steve by flinging his opponent over his back.

“Drop your weapons, face down! Now!” The team commander’s voice rose above the wave of chaos as the team waiting outside poured in.

Danny froze, a vague thought taking shape and blooming; focus on their leader. Cut the head off, kill the snake.

As in Evan, who was currently scrambling for a gun, grabbing it, spinning, pointing it at Steve.

Danny held his breath and pulled the trigger.

“Where’s Kono?” By the time he made it downstairs, the blood was pounding in Danny’s ears so hard, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear Steve’s answer.

His response was silent anyway; he grabbed Danny’s arm and ran, pulling him along, pointing to the door where SWAT agents were carrying someone in their arms.

That’s when another vague, frightening thought took shape for him – one Danny knew he could do almost nothing to help with.


	14. Doppelganger

It had been scary – numbing - the glimpse they’d caught of her going into the ambulance looking like her own ghost.

They tried to barrel into the vehicle with the EMTs but were tossed unceremoniously aside.

“We’re her team…” Danny shouted it, furious as the doors on the thing shut and it took off scattering gravel. “Her ohana!”

He was pissed enough to feel his own pulse in his neck when he turned and saw the look on Steve’s face – the one that said he’d wondered if Danny had maybe forgotten that.

“C’mon…” Danny headed for his SWAT vehicle.

~*~  
“Jesus, D…” Steve had a hard time keeping the phone in his hand steady enough to call Chin.

There was so little expectation anything would go down at the site that Chin was back at HQ. Steve had to be the one to let him know.

“Are you lecturing me on my driving? Really?”

“No, just…slow the hell down, going fast won’t….”

~*~

The look on Chin’s face when he saw them waiting in the ER hallway? He was almost unrecognizable, too. 

And without the adrenaline flowing through them to mask it? It was the hardest thing they’d faced all day.


	15. Flout

“I said _I’m getting out_. Tonight. They can’t _force_ me to…”

They’d never seen anyone go from zero to furious like this; When Steve blocked Kono from getting out of the hospital bed on one side, she’d try the other – only to have Chin press her back by the shoulder.

“Sweetie you weren’t here to see it,” Danny said from the door. “But you were out for two hours. You have an actual _concussion_ …”

“If you don’t stay and let your doctors keep an eye on…” Chin tried.

“Screw the doctors!” She threw off the sheet and scooted toward the foot of the bed.

“Kono, you could end up like Steve,” Danny tried again. “Brain damaged. And nobody wants that.”

She stopped scooting and started laughing softly, if somewhat maniacally.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, until it turned into silent, racking sobs.

“No, no, …. don’t you dare,” Danny marched over, running thumbs under her eyes like he could push them back in. “None of this is your fault, okay? Not the investigation going south, not…anything, got it?”

Chin sat on the edge of the bed to get an arm around her.

Steve watched as Danny turned and left, fast.


	16. Pusillanimous

“I never hit my wife. I never hit Rachel.”

“ _Jesus_ , Danny,” Steve had to go all the way to the parking lot to find him. “Who said you _did_?”

“I wanted to. More than once, I….” 

Danny mimicked a ‘to the moon’ gesture. It made Steve smile; he hadn’t seen that look on his face in so long.

“A lot of people in that boat. But you wouldn’t…”

“What happened… with us… um… I wanted to pop you. It was an accident I did but….” he stopped to collect himself and Steve leaned on the rail by the steps to the hospital doors and let him. “I realized I can’t afford to be that mad at you. So I had to leave.”

“What, you’re going to spend the rest of your life with people you _can_ afford to lose?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Bullshit. You’re like the model of the angry young man sometimes but… you’re not a coward.”

There was a long moment while they stood in silence while cars pulled in and out.

“So what do we do?” Danny asked.

“We call the governor. Tell him we both made a mistake. We tell him the truth and you come home. Agreed?”


	17. Aesthete

“There are two ways I can go…” Denning kicked back in his desk chair; as formal as he had to be and informal as he was capable of. “Either by the book…”

Danny tried not to flinch at that option, unsuccessfully.

“Or with what feels right. And what feels right is to leave your beautifully imperfect team together…”

They both breathed out, so audibly that Denning’s frown slipped and he smiled.

“Lucky for you, I’m an aesthete- so I’ll put any paper work related to this whole mess through my own personal shredder. But boys, heads up: If either of you comes back here asking for a divorce again? I might grant it right the hell away…”

~*~ 

“I watched a cop show once…” Chin said between sips. “Where they warned against drinking champagne from paper cups.”

“Screw that,” Danny filled them all up again, the four of them standing around the media table. “Bubbles are bubbles, right?”

~*~

He and Steve were the last two in the office that night, oddly.

Or maybe not oddly.

“So…” Danny said. “You got us this far. Got us home. What now?”

“Want to come over for dinner?” Steve asked. “So we can… talk?”


	18. Desuetude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Desuetude means in part to 'unlearn' which is where I took this....

“Wait, woah, stop...”

Steve had his lips _that_ close to Danny’s on their blanket on his beach.

“Really? You’re critiquing my lean-in?”

“No, I … I have an idea…”

They’d already talked through the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘I don’t know’s’. They’d apologized and promised to try to unlearn their bad habits of denying, deflecting and sheltering their wounded hearts. 

They’d agreed to take a chance on the worst maybe happening.

“See?” Danny said. “Like this…”

He slid and turned sideways, got his hip and a leg over Steve and it was … perfect; Steve hard and grinding slow against parts of him that hadn’t been touched in forever. Parts of him bumping back against Steve’s hip and abs as they kissed and rocked and dug their fingers and hands into each other’s clothes and skin and hair.

“Helllll…” Danny sighed. 

“Yeah…..” Steve twisted to top him, and picked up the pace. He shivered when Danny dragged fingernails down his side and up his back. “Fu _uuc_ k, babe, yessss…”

~*~

It wasn’t until they were upstairs and in Steve’s bed that it sank in.

“If you freak out tomorrow…” 

Steve had nothing to say back. But he did pull Danny in closer.

~tbc~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter, and that's it! :)


	19. Sybarite

“What’s that?” 

Steve was flat on his back, eyes half open, voice full of sandpaper. He must have just woken up again.

They’d been together, what? Five months? Long enough for new routines. Some Saturdays now Steve was out the door and in the ocean at dawn, but others he lingered; let Danny loll and enjoy their bed, their sheets… him. 

“Here, open it…” 

He handed Steve the flat thing wrapped in thick white paper he’d found by the front door on the way to the kitchen to start coffee.

“This was attached,” Danny flipped the note open. “ _’D and S, too soon? Smiley face. Hope not, hope you like it. I’ll have another present for the party tonight, but wanted you to have…_ ’ What? What's so funny?”

Steve was grinning, chuckling softly, turning the Koa wood frame around to show him.

“Ha. Son of a bitch. Yeah, Kono, maybe too soon.” 

Danny took a long look, though, at the four pictures; him gazing at Steve when Steve wasn’t looking- Steve’s eyes on Danny when Danny’s were elsewhere. “Maybe, like a decade too soon.”

He took the gift to the dresser and slid it in a drawer. Then he went back and slid atop Steve.

“Is _this_ too soon? Me moving in?” He pinned him down as he asked, drawing Steve’s hands over his head.

“No,” Steve started a slow twist under him. 

“Sure?”

“Don’t pick at it, D. ‘S’not too soon. That’s all there is to say about it.”

“Want you again. In the shower this time,” Danny added a hump to the twist. “Before breakfast. Can I have you in the shower?”

“Sex fiend,” Steve pushed up hard. “Pervert.”

“You fuckin’ love it…” Danny got up and dragged him to sitting.

“Go start the water,” He slapped him on the ass as Danny turned. “I’ll be right there.”

Steve was almost in the bathroom doorway, stretching, when he turned back a few steps to open the drawer. There was a nice, wide arm on the back of the frame. He pulled it out, set it on top just so.

“You start the coffee?”

“Yes. Get the hell in here. Fuck first. Then coffee.”

“Nympho..." He walked to the bathroom again, smiling. "Sybarite…”

“I hear a bunch of pretty words out of you, babe, but I do not hear no.”

~fin~


End file.
